Pakistan, April 18 -- In the last article, Determining fair income-tax base, Daily Times, April 12, 2021, an effort was made to determine fair income-tax base. In this article, the same exercise is undertaken for sales-tax on goods, administered by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) under Sales Tax Act, 1990 ["the Act]. The gap of 17 million was established under the income-tax law. The FBR has never mentioned in any of its publications, the total number of registered persons, how many are filing returns, how many showing no tax payable (NIL), dormant businesses (Null), claiming refunds and how many are actually paying taxes and how much.

It is shocking that in the latest FBR's Year Book: 2019-20, there is no mention of persons registere...